46.—(1) A person infringes the copyright in a work where he or she, without the licence of the copyright owner—

(a) makes,

(b) sells, rents or lends, or offers or exposes for sale, rental or loan,

(c) imports into the State, or

(d) has in his or her possession, custody or control,

an article specifically designed or adapted for making copies of that work, knowing or having reason to believe that it has been or is to be used to make infringing copies.

(2) A person infringes the copyright in a work where he or she, without the licence of the copyright owner, transmits the work by means of a telecommunications system (otherwise than by broadcasting or inclusion in a cable programme service) knowing or having reason to believe that infringing copies of the work may be made by means of the reception of the transmission in the State or elsewhere.

This seems to suggest it's OK -

140.—(1) A person who, without the consent of the copyright Offences. owner—

(a) makes for sale, rental or loan,

(b) sells, rents or lends, or offers or exposes for sale, rental or loan,

(c) imports into the State, otherwise than for his or her private and domestic use,

(d) in the course of a business, trade or profession, has in his or her possession, custody or control, or makes available to the public, or

(e) otherwise than in the course of a business, trade or profession, makes available to the public to such an extent as to prejudice the interests of the owner of the copyright,

a copy of a work which is, and which he or she knows or has reason to believe is, an infringing copy of the work, shall be guilty of an offence.

But I'm not sure about this one?

(3) A person who—

(a) makes,

(b) sells, rents or lends, or offers or exposes for sale, rental or loan,

(c) imports into the State, or

(d) has in his or her possession, custody or control,

an article specifically designed or adapted for making copies of a work, knowing or having reason to believe that it has been or is to be used to make infringing copies, shall be guilty of an offence.

Is a torrent sharing website "an article specifically designed or adapted for making copies of a work"?

Is a torrent sharing website "an article specifically designed or adapted for making copies of a work"?

technically and actually, no more so than google is such as for making copies of websites. Places like piratebay or similar only provide links to the torrents, dont host them and therefore cannot be considered copyright infringement.

I considered something similar a while back (hell, I've considered everything at least once... including controlling the world with flying monkeys); but to be perfectly honest, unless you've got a lawer and some pretty distinct goals from the 'service', Its not worth the effort -no matter whomever you talk to, the subject is on shaky ground, legally, ethically and technically. Most people just assume its illegal without any forethought into the subject.

As for having the server in Ireland, thats not a good idea anyhow. Server hosting in Ireland is not cheap, and you can do similar overseas for cheaper; the only advantage to doing it here is colo (co-location, you buy a server, they maintain it for you) but even at that its cheaper in the UK.

you could of course operate a system such as a "blacklist" where you keep a database of copyrighted material, and refuse to link to any approriately related content. that is of course if you want to be completely legitimate.